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Austin-based Whole Foods cutting hundreds of corporate jobs

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

AUSTIN (AP) — Amazon-owned Whole Foods says it is cutting several hundred jobs as part of a process to simplify the grocery chain’s operations.The company plans to make changes to some regional and global support teams over the next two months, according to a memo sent to employees Thursday by the Whole Foods executive team.The layoffs will take place as part of that shift and will affect less than 0.5% of the company’s total workforce, a Whole Foods spokesperson confirmed.Whole Foods is headquartered in Austin.Under the changes, Whole Foods, which operates across nine regions, will shift to six. Among other things, it will also create a companywide operations team and transition some specific store support services from regions to a single team.“We often talk about how simplifying our work and improving how we operate is critical as we grow,” the company’s executive team wrote in the memo. “We’ve made great progress in these areas through previous operational and organizational cha...

Mushroom hunter describes discovering body in the woods

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

PEVELY, Mo. - The mushroom hunter who found a woman's body in the woods Sunday night described the moments leading up to the tragic discovery.Two days after the body of a woman was discovered in the woods, police are calling it a suspicious death. The remains are believed to be evidence of the city's first murder since the 90s."When you're in a community that is a close-knit community, it's a shock,” said Chief Mark Glenn for the Pevely Police Department. Top Story: Mushroom hunter discovers human remains in Pevely Pevely police and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office await autopsy results from the medical examiner to find out the age and name of the woman, who is currently unidentified."That emotional part hit me because whoever it is—somebody's family member—is someone's friend,” Glenn said.The person who made the tragic discovery was looking for something else—morel mushrooms. Coincidentally, this marks the second time a Missouri mushroom hunter has found remains over the pas...

Inmate found dead hours after car crash in Franklin County

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

ST. CLAIR, Mo. - An investigation is underway after a man was found dead in a county jail hours after a car crash.The St. Clair Police Department in Missouri responded to several 911 calls Friday night about a car weaving in and out of both lanes of traffic on Interstate 44. Officers said they found a crashed car in the woodline, not far from the interstate."During that investigation, they found the driver to be under the influence of some type of intoxication," said Chief Michael Wirt for the St. Clair Police Department.An arrest report showed that 43-year-old Christopher Cox of Lebanon, Missouri, was taken into custody on Friday at 10:41 p.m.Wirt said while at the scene, EMS cleared Cox, but officers still took him to Mercy Hospital before going to jail. Top Story: Mushroom hunter discovers human remains in Pevely "Any time somebody's intoxicated or it seems like a higher level of intoxication, more than just what a normal person would be," Wirt said. "We take them to the hospit...

Trash remains a concern for residents in north St. Louis

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

ST. LOUIS - St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones has made cleaning up St. Louis a priority, but in certain spots, the city's garbage crisis is worse than ever.It's gotten so bad that a neighborhood south of O’Fallon Park is seeing makeshift landfills that homeowners say have been festering for months.Ann Wright said she was glad to see a city trash truck emptying overfilled dumpsters in the Holly Avenue alleys Tuesday after she filed a complaint Monday night.That hardly took care of the problem. The amount of trash that remains on the ground near the dumpsters is staggering and disgusting.A few blocks over in the alley behind Red Bud Avenue, food garbage, old mattresses, furniture, and clothing stretched out on the ground behind multiple homes. Tor Cox owns a property there. He said the scheduled monthly bulk waste pickup had not happened for months.“It’s been the same every three months, and it hasn’t changed," Cox said. "I was actually coming to take pictures of it, to give it to the ci...

East St. Louis shoppers caught off guard with Save A Lot store closure 

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - Fairmont City's Killian Weir was on his way to get groceries from East St. Louis's Save A Lot on Vieux Carre Drive when he noticed an empty parking lot and a sign on the supermarket's door."It says sorry, we’re closed, with two little sad faces on it," Weir said on Tuesday. “I knew nothing about it." Unlike the warning, Cahokia Heights shoppers were given about the recent Walmart closing, East St. Louis shoppers found it when they approached the store's front door. “You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when I saw this store was closed," Weir said. Weir said he's been noticing a trend of stores closing. First, it was his local independent grocery store, Foodland, in Fairmont City. Then there was the Cahokia Heights Walmart, and now there is the Save A Lot, which, according to a nearby Da Grind Fitness employee, Kenyun Newble, closed last week.  Top Story: Mushroom hunter discovers human remains in Pevely “I was sad because I su...

St. Louis fire chief testifies about being stonewalled on promotions by his own city

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

ST. LOUIS - In a case that 17 firefighters filed to get the city to pay them for what they earned, St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson gave testimony before a federal judge on Monday.On the stand, Jenkerson said, “They passed the test” and “They have what it takes.”Yet those promotions are being held up by the St. Louis Department of Public Safety (DPS), which refuses to talk about it with FOX 2.Jenkerson said on the stand that he was caught off guard when the city started denying the promotions last year. He said the promotions are based on a list of people supplied by DPS and that they even fall within the city budget that the board of aldermen has already authorized.St. Louis City counselors were mostly silent during the chief’s testimony, except when he was asked if the stalled promotions would improve diversity. City lawyers objected. The judge overruled the objection, and Jenkerson said yes, the promotions would improve diversity. Top Story: Mushroom hunter discovers human...

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones delivers 'State of the City' address

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

ST. LOUIS - St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones delivered her second State of the City address on Tuesday. She spoke for nearly 45 minutes on a wide range of topics, from poverty to abortion rights to crime statistics. A big topic she addressed is the ongoing push for the state to take over the city's police department.“We have been vocal about what we need to improve public safety, and a state takeover of our police department isn’t it," Jones said. "We have 99 problems, and the state stepping in and taking over our criminal justice system ain't one. For people who don’t live here, they sure do have a lot to say about how St. Louis should run our police department.” Top Story: Mushroom hunter discovers human remains in Pevely One of the driving forces behind the legislation is Representative Brad Christ, who had this response.“With the support of law enforcement, I have sponsored legislation returning control of St. Louis police to a state board," he said. "Just as it was for generati...

Keeler: If Nuggets want NBA title, Jamal Murray might have to carry them there

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

Jamal Murray floated above the cringe. He sailed. He feinted. He faded. He soared.The Nuggets’ point guard opened the second half by crashing the paint and elevating with his back to the rim, then throwing the ball overhead and blind, circus-style, at the hoop.Naturally, he swished it.Surely, the Blue Arrow can’t do this alone, can he?For most of Tuesday’s series-wrapping 112-109 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, it looked as if Murray might have to.With 3:34 left in a four-point game, No. 27 had put up five treys and 33 points. The other seven Nuggets had combined for seven and 67, respectively.Tuesday was a walk through Bizarro World. The T-Pups, down 3-1, managed to split the difference between desperate and loose. The Nuggets, conversely, seemed to alternate between uptight and upstaged. (see Edwards, Anthony.)Nikola Jokic, Mr. Dependable, played in a funk, missing on 17 of his first 23 shots and eight of his first 10, en route to one of the least sexy triple-doubles of a Hal...

L.A. police pursuits injure more than 1,000 people in past 5 years: LAPD report 

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

More than a thousand people have been injured in the past five years during police pursuits, and half of those injuries were sustained by innocent bystanders, according to a new report on police chases in Los Angeles.In 2023 alone, seven people were injured and three were killed during police pursuits, according to the Los Angeles Police Department's Pursuit Injuries Report. “Clearly we don’t take that lightly,” said LAPD Commander Craig Valenzuela.The Board of Commissioners requested more data after two fatal pursuits in the San Fernando Valley earlier this year. However, Chief Michel Moore is not ready to make immediate changes to the department’s pursuit policy, Commander Valenzuela confirmed.  “He doesn’t want a policy that fully limits officers from chasing because we do have a responsibility to make arrests,” he said. One person had to be rescued from a car after a pursuit crash in South Los Angeles on March 19, 2023. (KTLA) A police pursuit of a suspected reckl...

Los Angeles to Las Vegas bullet train receives bipartisan backing

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

A bipartisan congressional group from California and Nevada has asked for federal funding to be fast-tracked for the high-speed train from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.A new station will be built in Rancho Cucamonga and will connect to existing Metrolink service lines in San Bernardino and Los Angeles. Riders from SoCal area can arrive in Vegas in a little over two hours while traveling at speeds of nearly 200 mph.The company behind the project, Brightline West, will spend over $10 billion to lay tracks along the Interstate 15 corridor in a public-private partnership.The Nevada Department of Transportation is seeking $3.75 billion in federal funding from the Biden administration-backed federal infrastructure law.All six of Nevada’s elected federal lawmakers and four House members from California sent the letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, asking for funds to be fast-tracked.Brightline’s train will connect the Los Angeles metro area to Las Vegas with high speed rail....